The mix of content-How local?
NigelBarlow
stories for the last 2-3 weeks to build content for launch.
One thing that I would like to discuss is the mix of news.I suppose it
is really about a trade off between being hyperlocal and niche and at
the same time attracting a bigger audience to the site .One way is to
put a local perspective on a national news story but do people feel
that we should also be trying to carry some national or regional news?
william perrin
general i would keep it totally local and exploit the niche you will
never compete with the trad media for national news. but certainly
one can put a local angle on national stories
both political parties and OFCOM seem to agree that regional news is
dead - it is a curious artefact of cold war transmitter topology. but
some regions so self identify and are poorly served by web media
(maybe beceause they are artificial).
localness depends on perspective - in kings cross and say parwich
sites are very very local indeed, but pitsnpots is also local depsite
covering a much bigger patch in the whole of stoke on trent.
in kings cross we sometimes miss national stories that parachute in -
when gordon brown came to the hub in kings cross we didn't cover it
because we missed it - was a national media thing.
what do others think?
Richard
my local area, but if something happens in a nearby village or town,
I've sometimes given it a mention too if I've thought it was relevant.
Newspapers, local radio, etc often won't mention anything local
outside their 'patch' at all which I've always thought was stupid,
people in one area are often interested in things happening nearby.
However, the further away something is, I'm probably less likely to
cover it.
When it comes to local angles on national stories, I did a little
experiment when the schoolboy from Shaw (only a few miles from
Saddleworth - my site is www.saddleworthnews.com) Sahil Saeed was
abducted in Pakistan. I gave the story a couple of mentions on the
site, just basic posts linking to content from the regional and
national media, and put a few tags on the posts. Within minutes of
putting the first story up it was higher up on the Google front page
for 'Sahil Saeed' than the equivalent story from Sky News. Not that
I'd suggest putting stories up willy nilly just to get hits, because
you're not exactly going to get visitors who will return, but I think
it's a lesson in how powerful tags can be in SEO (which is something I
know absolutely nothing about).
On a more general point, I've found the stories which have generated
most hits are local ones that are not considered important enough to
be covered by local papers. For example, last night there was a
moorland fire near where I live, I was driving by and stopped and took
a picture, got some info from the fire brigade and wrote a story when
I got home. Within four hours I'd had more than 300 unique users, all
searching for things like "what was the fire near the M62" and so on.
The story got a derisory couple of paragraphs on one local paper
website today. To me, this is the sort of thing that hyperlocal is
there for, and can do very well.
On Apr 12, 11:29 am, william perrin <williamjper...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday)
from the Hyperlocal Social Media Cafe in Manc??
I've been pretty strict with what I cover. While I can do my patch
really well, within ten minutes walk is the city centre which the
local paper are all over - and it won't benefit anyone competing
there.
A good source of interest has been the local football (I've yet to
cover other sports groups) - they've more than likely got a Facebook
presence which can be politely exploited and it adds another dimension
to someone's neighbourhood.
Politics-wise, SR2 uncomfortably straddles two constituencies so I
don't expend too much time on that front - I'm focussing on the three
wards here, trying to get an interview with as many new candidates as
possible - quite a tall order as I'm sure Richard will testify!
Looking forward to Sat.
Josh
On 12 Apr, 11:49, Richard <richardwilliamsjo...@googlemail.com> wrot
> This is an interesting point. I've been focusing on just stories from
> my local area, but if something happens in a nearby village or town,
> I've sometimes given it a mention too if I've thought it was relevant.
> Newspapers, local radio, etc often won't mention anything local
> outside their 'patch' at all which I've always thought was stupid,
> people in one area are often interested in things happening nearby.
> However, the further away something is, I'm probably less likely to
> cover it.
>
> When it comes to local angles on national stories, I did a little
> experiment when the schoolboy from Shaw (only a few miles from
> Saddleworth - my site iswww.saddleworthnews.com) Sahil Saeed was
Mike Rawlins
Lots of factors need to be considered here. Is your site #hyperlocal?
Is the national news story relevant?
#hyperlocal by definition is a very confined area, SR2 or WV11 are
#hyperlocal as is Kingscross. Pits n Pots isn't #hyperlocal compared
to MyTunstal, PnP is niche because we focus on the local politics.
Inside the M60 is a massive area so a national news story is more
likely to be relevant to a section of your readers.
There is no right or wrong answer, you need to see what works for you,
what you think will work and what does work will probably be 2
different things and will certainly change in the first 6 9 & 12
months of being live.
I'll be interested in talking through some ideas on Saturday
On 12 Apr, 14:51, "Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday)"
Jo Densley
national stories which does work well
what do others think?
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Ed Walker
levels of 'localness' in content and see what works - your traffic
will soon tell you whether you're on the right lines or not.
I think with the 'Inside the M60' idea it's a large area and you've
got lots and lots of separate communities and geographic areas, so
will need to make sure the tagging/categories are hot and easily
searchable - so people can drill down and find what they want to read.
Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday)
relevance that sees readers migrate from 'local' newspapers.
Personally, I wouldn't bother localising national stories - the
'local'/regional media do that enough, to no great effect. I'd use
these national stories as a talking point outside the website - on
Twitter, Facebook - as a means of engagement and understanding the
community.
Josh.
NigelBarlow
Manchester whilst preparing this project and to be honest the local
media rarely do a local take on national news.I have for eaxmple just
posted a story on the Tory manifesto out today which contains three
very relevant things for Manchester.
I also don't believe that it is necessarily the lack of locality that
has driven people away from local papers,it is the lack of anything.
But I do agree that other social media in conjunction with the site is
a way of putting a local spin on a national topic.
As Mike Rawlins says,ultiamtely the area that we will be covering does
warrant a local spin on national stories basically because of the
diversity of interests,social strategies etc.
Anyway thanks all for the feedback on this topic-should make for a
good discussion on Saturday
On 13 Apr, 16:12, "Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday)"
Philip John
national story. For example, take the income tax/VAT policies of the
two main parties and see if you can apply it to the area you cover to
say "this is how it may effect our community" - I think that kind of
localisation could be both very useful and also very fudging cool.
Otherwise I'd say leave anything that hasn't got a good connection
with your area. On TLB we've had many national stories; the murder of
Michael Eccles, Shaun Smith on Britain's Got Talent, the Staffordshire
Hoard (found in a village 20 mins from my house-exciting!), the death
of Harrison Joyce which has led to the Harrison's Law campaign. Each
of these has a strong connection with Lichfield and the surrounding
district which we consider our 'patch'.
Having said that we have, on occasion, had reviews of shows on at
Birmingham Hippodrome - we're still undecided about whether we should
do that!
Lisa Reeves
separate site for the neighbouring town - wilmslow.co.uk.
There is some overlap - the business directory (though the results for
each particular town are shown first) and events calendar are the
same, and whilst there is some cross over with news stories,
particularly from the local council, we publish different stories on
each site.
Alderley Edge and Wilmslow are less than 2 miles apart but they are
very different communities and we feel that one of the strengths of
the sites is that they are so focussed on that particular area -
whilst our local paper covers a much larger area. Residents in
Wilmslow aren't particularly interested in news from Alderley schools,
Parish Council, planning applications etc.
Regards
Lisa